Iran on my mind

Israeli historian Benny Morris games out an Israeli attack on Iran and its aftermath, which might include nuclear exchanges between Israel and Iran, in an Op-Ed piece in Friday’s New York Times: “Should Israel’s conventional assault fail to significantly harm or stall the Iranian program, a ratcheting up of the Iranian-Israeli conflict to a nuclear level will most likely follow.”

The University of Chicago’s Raja Kamel offers her argument against a U.S. attack on Iran in a column in the Chicago Tribune. She says an attack would prompt sharply increased Iranian hostility toward the U.S., a ratcheting up of Iranian-sponsored extremist activity in Iraq, restriction of oil flow in the Strait of Hormuz and another war between Israel and Iran’s proxy militia in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

Israeli Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli government point person for talks with the U.S. on Iran, sits down with the Jerusalem Post and again warns that Israel ultimately may have to resort to a military strike against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons facilities.

The Post report also bizarrely says Mofaz “stands a good chance of becoming prime minister shortly after September’s Kadima primary.” What polls are they reading? He barely has a shot. Ha’aretz’s Yossi Verter puts his money on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud opposition leader and former PM.